losophical assemblies. As
he did not suspect his unfitness for common affairs, he fell no
reluctance to obey the invitation, and what he did not feel he had yet
too much honesty to feign. He entered into the world as a larger and
more populous college, where his performances would be more publick, and
his renown farther extended; and imagined that he should find his
reputation universally prevalent, and the influence of learning every
where the same.

His merit introduced him to splendid tables and elegant acquaintance;
but he did not find himself always qualified to join in the
conversation. He was distressed by civilities, which he knew not how to
repay, and entangled in many ceremonial perplexities, from which his
books and diagrams could not extricate him. He was sometimes unluckily
engaged in disputes with ladies, with whom algebraick axioms had no
great weight, and saw many whose favour and esteem he could not but
desire, to whom he was very little recommended by his theories of the
tides, or his approximations to the quadrature of the circle.

Gelasimus did not want penetration to discover, that no charm was more
generally irresistible than that of easy facetiousness and flowing
hilarity. He saw that diversion was more frequently welcome than
improvement; that authority and seriousness were rather feared than
loved; and that the grave scholar was a kind of imperious ally, hastily
dismissed when his assistance was no longer necessary. He came to a
sudden resolution of throwing off those cumbrous ornaments of learning
which hindered his reception, and commenced a man of wit and jocularity.
Utterly unacquainted with every topick of merriment, ignorant of the
modes and follies, the vices and virtues of mankind, and unfurnished
with any ideas but such as Pappas and Archimedes had given him, he began
to silence all inquiries with a jest instead of a solution, extended his
face with a grin, which he mistook for a smile, and in the place of
scientifick discourse, retailed in a new language, formed between the
college and the tavern, the intelligence of the newspaper.

Laughter, he knew, was a token of alacrity; and, therefore, whatever he
said or heard, he was careful not to fail in that great duty of a wit.
If he asked or told the hour of the day, if he complained of heat or
cold, stirred the fire, or filled a glass, removed his chair, or snuffed
a candle, he always found some occasion to laugh. The jest was indeed a